Ontario Educators Say No! to Government Dictate
Workers Hold One-Day Province-Wide Strike
- Mira Katz -
 
Teachers and education workers tell Education
Minister, "No Education Cuts!"
Toronto, November 27, 2019.
On Wednesday, December 4, members of the Ontario
Secondary School
Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) who work in K-12
and adult education in
Ontario, will hold a province-wide one-day
strike. In an act of
solidarity, members of the Canadian Union of
Public Employees (CUPE)
who also work in the system announced they would
not
cross the picket lines.
OSSTF represents high school teachers in public
secondary schools across Ontario as well as
educational support staff
in many elementary and secondary schools and
school board facilities
across the province. This means that in addition
to high schools being
shut down by the strike, many elementary schools
will also be
shut as they are unable to function without the
work of educational
support staff, who in many ways keep the system
from completely falling
apart. Meanwhile CUPE represents custodians,
secretarial staff and
other educational support staff in many schools
across the province and
their refusal to cross the picket line brings
more schools, including
those in the Catholic and French publicly-funded
system, into the
strike as well.
After eight months of trying to get the Ford
government
to back down on its assault on education,
especially its arbitrary
change of class size averages and a requirement
that students take
e-learning courses to graduate, OSSTF has taken
the step of letting the
government know that No Means No!
Meanwhile the government,
through its
Minister of Education Stephen Lecce, tries to
present its modifications
to its earlier dictate -- proposing to raise
class size averages from
22 to 25 instead of 28, or requiring two instead
of the previous four
e-learning classes to graduate -- as evidence of
its flexibility. The
unions and the working people of Ontario are not
buying it.
 All
along the line, the government and Minister
Lecce have been attempting
to disinform the public about the just demands
and claims of the
teachers in order to undermine the broad support
that teachers and
education workers have among the people. Still,
upwards of 75 per cent
of parents who responded to the Ford government
consultations
opposed increased class sizes and the reduction
of individual attention
for students.
Parents' groups have joined the fight, calling
for
parents to bring their kids to the Sheraton
Hotel in downtown Toronto
the night before the strike begins if a deal has
not been reached
between the parties, to make it clear that they
stand with the
educators.
Laura Chesnik, Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada
spokesperson on education and related matters,
and an elementary
teacher in Ontario, stated in an interview with
Workers Forum:
"Everyone who is able should join the picket
lines. Educators in
Ontario are making it clear that they will not
accept government
dictate and that No Means
No!
"Like educators across Canada, those who work
to provide
the younger generation with an education will
not accept being
relegated to becoming robots or police in the
classroom with no say
over the direction of the system and their wages
and working
conditions. The government's arbitrary changes
to class sizes and
e-learning as well as
attempts to undermine educators' professional
judgment in the classroom
are destructive. They are aimed at hiding that
this government, like
those before it, is using its control over the
public treasury to pay
the rich and sees education as a cost rather
than a value which is the
basis for a prosperous and sustainable economy.
This is a fight for
empowerment by those who deliver vital public
services asserting their
right to have a say over the education they
deliver and the economy as
a whole. This is why parents and students are
standing alongside
educators in Ontario as they also want a say.
 "The
government's only option at this point is to
either back down and drop
these changes or to double down and try and
criminalize educators who
refuse to submit. If the government chooses the
latter it will only
place the democratic institutions in Canada into
a deeper crisis of
legitimacy and may well backfire as education
workers refuse to
back down. Dalton McGuinty's own former
constituency assistant during
the Bill 115 debacle, John Fraser, who is
currently interim Ontario
Liberal Leader, said as much in testimony in
committee. He appealed to
the government to learn from the former Liberal
government's experience
and to back down on using dictate to get what it
wants.
Fraser speaks for that section of the ruling
class that wants a
government that gets education workers to agree
to attacks on education
voluntarily, and sees Ford as too much of a bull
in a China shop.
Whatever the case may be, education workers are
more and more speaking
for themselves and making it clear that they
will not accept being
disrespected and they want a say."
This article was published in
Number 29 - December 4, 2019
Article Link:
Ontario Education Workers Hold
One-Day Province-Wide Strike: Educators Say No! To Government Dictate - Mira Katz
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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